The refs were great last night

[JSD]

In short, Doc would rather take his chances with Al Horford at the line in that situation than run the risk of giving up a miracle game winner by the Hawks.  

I am completely shocked that this theory got any traction whatsoever.  If Doc is: 1) intentionally putting a 76% career FT shooter on the line with 3 seconds left, rather than forcing a jumper; and 2) choosing to put Horford on the line rather than somebody like Josh Smith, then he should immediately be relieved of his coaching duties.

That theory only makes sense if Doc is trying to lose basketball games, Tim Donaghy style.  I'll trust Doc's explanation that KG and Marquis blew the assignment.

I don't see how it was blown assignments, though. Quis was cleary assigned to Horford.

Here's Doc:

“Well, we wanted to go small with one big,” the Celtics coach explained after his team's 83–80 win. “And the mistake we made, and we were trying to screen – Marquis should’ve been guarding the ball, out of bounds, and Kevin [Garnett] should’ve been on Horford. They got mixed up, and we got lucky.”

Thanks Roy TP. That explains it. But how does Doc not scream for the adjustment after the 1st foul? The whole thing was nuts

[timpiker]

First time I can ever remember where I felt the refs definitely helped us win a game.  Red would be happy.

[GreenFaith1819]

I wouldn't say that they outright helped us win, but it was definitely pleasant to see a game flow and for BOS to be allowed to be physical for a change.

I think that went both ways, too. Horford is a BIG Man..Damp was, too. You have to, I think, allow a team to respond in kind to that much size.

Between Joe Johnson, Marvin Williams, T-Mac, Damp, Al and JS - they were BIGGER than us I believe.

Lord knows I've seen enough games where it seemed like things went against us.

[Roy H.]

Here's an interesting look at how the refs arguably swallowed their whistles on the play that led to Josh Smith's missed jumper:

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2012/5/10/3013327/josh-smith-video-celtics-vs-hawks-nba-playoffs-2012/in/2775502

The refs definitely let us play very physically there.  If that had happened in reverse, I'd be upset as a Celts fan.

[dlpin]

another terrible call from game 1 that I remember is the refs calling goaltending when Bass block a Josh Smith dunk attempt.

So yeah, we clearly got away with a lot on game 6. But if game 1 was called evenly, we would have swept.